


By Ones and By Twos and By Threes

by lferion



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: 10th Century, Camels - Freeform, Gen, Historical, Librarians, Libraries, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 12:46:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13124019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: Methos and a tale from his past, told by others.





	By Ones and By Twos and By Threes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jinxed_wood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinxed_wood/gifts).



> Thank you so much to the Usual Suspects, and most especially to Amand-r, for running this fest and for patience above and beyond.

Once upon a time, (half a millennium ago at least) a man had four hundred camels. And one day, the Grand Vizier of all Persia came to him, needing the use of his herd, and wanting to buy it, and hire the man, for you see, it was an especially well trained herd. They could walk in a line, one after the other, or two by two or three by three. Now, you may say that is nothing spacial, camels walk in orderly lines all the time, by ones and by twos and by threes. And so they do, and by fours and fives and even sixes as well (though not more than sevens, that I have ever seen.) But these camels always walked in the same order, the same camel always the first, the second always the second, and so forth.

 

No, no, that's not where the story starts! The Vizier had a hundred thousand books, and four hundred dedicated camels would be needed to carry them all. A great many more than four hundred camels would be required for the whole train.

 

(They are both right, after a fashion. And it was a millennium, not half. But I'm not telling this story, they are.)

 

Anyway, a whole lot of books and/or a whole lot of camels. Now, some say that the Vizier (or one of his officers, for surely the Vizier himself, the second-most august person in Persia, would not be dealing with a camel-herder himself, that would be ridiculous) was quite serious about buying the camels, for carrying his library with him on his travels about the lands. Others say that he did not want to buy the herd or hire the man, but only to show the Shah of Shahs and Emir of Emirs that the very idea of transporting a library such as his while still making it possible to use (for the Vizier was a scholar, and always referring to history and philosophy and all manner of of writing in order to carry out his duties) was a task too much for any herd or herdsman. And there are some who say this entire tale is mere fancy. But if it were only fancy, who would bother to argue over it, as Archimbault and Kaseem do? 

 

(Oh, the tale is real enough, for all the details change. And for once I even have a witness who would say the same, and though I see him down at the other end of the fire, eyes twinkling. He will say no more than I, and be gone by morning, if he is even really here at all.)

 

But whether the Vizier wanted the camels to fail at the task, he did not show it. And the tale as I have it says that it was Vizier Abdul Ismail himself, in company with his newest librarian-scholar, who had found the herd and herdsman. And the camels marched along beautifully in order, by ones, then twos, then threes, and the Vizier bought them on that very afternoon. 

 

Now the way I heard the tale, the herdsman and the librarian were one and the same (which I think is evidence of it being a fable and not history at all, for why would a scholar be a herder, or a herder a scholar? But the purchase of the herd and the hire of the herdsman were, as you say, accomplished, and directed to come to the Vizier's palace, to be loaded up with the books, for there was a journey to be made, that must begin without delay, at the order of the Sultan of all Persia.

 

But all agree that on the day appointed for the caravan to set out, the camels with their packs and panniers all most carefully filled with scrolls and tablets and codices, with paper and pens and ink, and all the needful materials of a scholar of scholars, went forth from the palace of the Vizier, in order by name and the letters of the alphabet, by ones and by twos and by threes. 

 

And yes, there was all the rest of the train too, another four hundred camels and more, horses and donkeys and goats, with the Vizier's household and traveling goods and everything necessary for the long journey to come. 

 

(Now that really is story-telling elision. It took more than a month to fit out and load those camels, not to mention that they were not nearly as perfectly trained as all that. And while they did start out named in order, that didn't last more than a day. By the time we were on the road Nasir and his crew had gotten the herd to go in _an_ order, never mind their names. The book-packs were labeled, and went on the camels in order, and we just tried to keep the animals from straying too far in each day's travel.)

 

Now the scholar-librarian, who some say was called Adam, and others Nathan, and others simply Ali, (though Archie there insists he was called Qanafadh* for the way his hair stuck up), became very close to the Vizier, and there was no other that he was so fond of arguing the meanings of texts and the thought behind the words as written. You would have thought that the scholar had had a hand in writing some of the things they discussed, so well did he know them, and he could read every language they came in. 

 

(Of course I could read all of them. And I had written several, and translated more. Interesting that that has made it into the story though! Not a detail I would have expected to be included. Though I hadn't read all of them. That was part of why I was along — all those books I hadn't yet read.)

 

So the journey went along, and the Vizier dispensed judgement and settled disputes, and did the work of the learned and the wise as needful in the places that the great caravan stopped for the night or the week. And at every stop, the Vizier would call for a book, and the scholar-librarian would bring in without delay, from the line of marvelous, orderly camels.

 

But then one evening, after the caravan had stopped, the tents raised, the supper eaten and the prayers said, a stranger came out of the crowd of servants and the keepers of the animals, and challenged the scholar-librarian to meet him, steel to steel, not word to word as had been the custom for entertainment of the Vizier and his advisors, on nights when they were not to move on immediately from where it was they camped. The Vizier tried to dissuade the stranger, but he claimed an insult from days long past, that nothing else would remedy. The counselors too, argued for a different contest, but the stranger would not hear them either. The scholar himself sat at the Vizier's right hand, and said nothing at all.

 

(How did this incident get into the story like this? Aesclepios over there is as surprised as I am, methinks.)

 

The stranger would not be moved from his purpose, and at last the Vizier acquiesced, though with great sorrow, for the scholar librarian was a slight and unwarlike man, though tall and well-formed. The stranger was thick-thewed and had seen many battles. How could his friend hope to prevail? So the Vizier gave his own good scimitar to the scholar to use, and directed that the ground before his tent be cleared, that he might oversee the duel, that all be done with such rightness as might be. To blood only, declared the Vizier, and the stranger bent his neck in apparent, though reluctant agreement. 

 

And so they fought in the clear moonlight, on the firm-beaten sand of the desert highlands, a conflict bitter to watch, for indeed the scholar was outmatched, though not by as much as assumed. Many a blow he avoided by quickness, and it very soon became obvious that the stranger had no intention of obeying the Vizier's directive. At last, the stranger landed a blow the scholar could not turn or avoid, and bloodied from breast to hip, he fell to the sand. But he, too, had landed a blow, and the fine steel of the Vizier's blade had marked the stranger's face. 

 

(There were all kinds of things wrong with that fight. I wanted to keep that life, and the fight was in public. Not to mention I really hate fighting in sand. Even when it's been well pounded flat and smooth. A bad situation all around.)

 

The Vizier stood to declare a draw, all honor satisfied, but the stranger would not hear him, and raised his blade to to strike at the scholar, intending to take his head. Yet before the blow could fall, the camel-herder — he of the marvelous and well-trained camels — threw himself at the stranger, bringing him to the ground and saving the scholar.

 

Grim-faced, the Vizier called for his physicians, and bore the scholar to his own tent, that he might be tended. The stranger was firmly fastened to a stake in the center of the cleared ground, under close guard.

 

(Not that close, fortunately. Also fortunately, Ismail deemed it a blessing and gift of god that I was not killed — he had seen me heal before, though I had not told him all the details.)

 

Then, in the very depth of the night, a great cloud came up, and a storm arose, and a bolt of fearsome lightning struck at the stake where the stranger stood in his chains, and obliterated him utterly, and all the caravan declared it was the judgment of god on one faithless and without honor, to strike at one defenseless and against the word of the Vizier, who spoke with the word of the king of kings.

 

That's not how I heard it. The tale I know has it that yes, in the night a storm blew up, of sand and wind, and while the company were busy with securing tents and calming the animals, the stranger vanished from the stake, snuck into the tent where the scholar lay and made off with him. But presently there was a crash and boom and behind the rocky outcropping that sheltered the camp, lightning struck and struck again, down from the heavens and up again to the sky. When it was over, there was no sign of the stranger, but the scholar, staggering back into camp, collapsed into the Vizier's arms.

 

(I did not collapse.)

 

Thus was the stranger justly served, and the Vizier's scholar preserved. And after a day or two to recover, the caravan continued on its way, the library camels proceeding in alphabetical order by ones and by twos and by threes.

 

And some say, in the desert, when the moon is in the proper season, and one is in exactly the right place, that the lightning can still be seen, leaping from sand to sky.

 

(Now that is nonsense. But it makes a good story.)

**Author's Note:**

> *Hedgehog
> 
> Sources of inspiration -- the Tumblr post [that gave me the idea](http://madamefaust.tumblr.com/post/168235752057/heatherchristle-from-alberto-manguels-a-history), and [a little more context for the quote](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Untangling_the_Web/Preface:_The_Clew_to_the_Labyrinth).


End file.
